We put Clarkson and AA Gill on a boat in France in the hope that at least one would fall in. What happened was even worse… they fell in love with France

AA Gill and Jeremy Clarkson clashed over their views on the French (Lorena Ros)

AA Gill

Of all of Clarkson’s ruddy, intransigently stubborn, pouty,
Yorkshire-contrarian beliefs, hunches and prejudices, perhaps the most
obtuse and unbelievably counter-intuitive is his deep, soulful love for the
French.

You would laid good money on the fact that Jeremy would be an arch
frog-botherer, that he’d have a Falstaffian loathing for the cringing,
beret-wearing, philosophy-spouting, bike-pedalling, arrogant French. He’d be
mocking their Napoleon complexes and flicking Agincourt V-signs from the
Eurostar. But non, mon brave. He admires the French above all of
God’s creation. He says he likes their attitude, their style of life, their
priorities, their dress sense, their undress sense, their flirtatious
insouciance, the way they smell, the way they eat small birds under napkins,
and the way they drink their wine. But mostly what he adores about the
French is that they have never heard of Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy’s love of
the French is unrequited. And